


The Walking Wounded

by Cinaed



Category: CSI: Las Vegas
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-05
Updated: 2006-10-05
Packaged: 2017-10-07 23:16:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinaed/pseuds/Cinaed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After all, this is Catherine Willows -- the poised, beautiful one with a wry smile and dry sense of humor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Walking Wounded

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for "Built to Kill II."

When Catherine all but snarls at her when she offers to help, Wendy cannot keep from being startled. After all, this is _Catherine Willows_ -- the poised, beautiful one with a wry smile and dry sense of humor, the unflappable golden-haired goddess of the Clark County Crime Lab. 

After the surprise fades, it is replaced by hurt, a fierce, deep ache in her chest, and a bit of anger too, because Wendy cannot help feeling unjustly attacked. To make it even worse, the attack came from someone she deeply respects. Wendy had been trying to be _helpful_. Since when did being friendly and ready to lend a hand earn a glower and a snarl? 

Later, when Lindsey is kidnapped and the details of what exactly Catherine had been doing in the DNA lab comes out, Wendy feels the first stirrings of shame for her earlier anger, and fiercely squashes the sentiment. After all, there was no way she could have possibly known that Catherine was trying to deal with a traumatic experience. She has no reason to feel guilty. That doesn’t mean, however, she can’t feel sorry for the other woman or wince internally at the hell that Catherine is going through. 

And so she watches, as Catherine, red-eyed and looking more like a Fury than a goddess now, stalks up and down the hallways of the lab, pale and still hauntingly beautiful despite her obvious anguish, and Wendy thinks to herself, _She is one of them now. The walking wounded._ It is a title that she’s given each grieving soul who enters the crime lab, whether they are grieving for a friend or a family member, brother or lover. It doesn’t matter whether they wear their loss on their sleeves or tucked away in the over-brightness of their eyes that hint at tears, whether their misery is betrayed by the muscle jumping in their jaw or the slightest catch in their voice as they speak. They are all the walking wounded. 

Wendy watches, and the fierce, deep ache is back with a vengeance, a pressure beneath her ribcage that makes it hard to breathe, but this ache is born of sympathy for Catherine’s agony, because it is obvious in the lines of strain on her face, in the desperation that makes her blue eyes hard and hurt. 

If Wendy knew what to say that would ease the strain from the other woman’s face and lessen the desperation in her eyes, she would touch Catherine gently and tell her everything, anything that could make this night less terrible. But all the words feel hollow and useless when she tries to gather them into even a single sentence meant to comfort, and so she stays silent, and keeps watching, as the other woman paces, up and down the hallways, in and out of the labs, the harsh lab lights falling upon the beautiful, broken Valkyrie and pointing out every mark of woe on her face. 

Being a witness to Catherine’s anguish serves little purpose but to make the ache twist deeper, to cause intangible fingers to grasp her heart and _squeeze_, but it is, Wendy thinks, the least she can do.


End file.
